694. Are You Actually Stuck Or Just Overwhelmed

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19:59

In this first installment of the Stuck Series, Lesley Logan, Pilates coach and host of Be It Till You See It, breaks down what feeling stuck actually means and why so many of us misdiagnose it. She offers a clearer way to read those frustrating in-between moments, when the old isn't working, and the new hasn't fully clicked yet. Tune in to find out why motivation isn't what will get you unstuck.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • The difference between being stuck, overwhelmed, or just outgrowing yourself.
  • How identity lag traps you between your old and new self.
  • Why the habits that kept you safe as a kid now keep you stuck.
  • Why your brain isn't broken when ADHD makes you feel stuck.
  • How to reframe stuck as recalibration so you keep moving forward.


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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Stuck is not a personality trait. It is not something that represents who you are. You're not a stuck person, but it is a moment of misalignment, and it does mean that we have to get in there like a mechanic would to see what is the actual problem.


Lesley Logan 0:14  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 


Lesley Logan 0:57  

All right, Be It babe. As promised, we have a series on what to do when we're stuck. How do we be it till we see it when we are feeling stuck? And I guess the question is to be like, are we saying this like, "I feel stuck right now," or do you have ideas and you have goals, but you're just not taking action steps? 


Lesley Logan 1:13  

To get into the stuckness, we have to kind of just talk about what is being stuck, right? And how often are we calling this out on ourselves? Because if it's just been a few unproductive days, are you actually stuck? Are you overwhelmed? Right? Did you miss a goal, and that's why you're saying you're stuck, or are you stuck because you don't know how to take the next step? And that's perfectly okay. 


Lesley Logan 1:33  

I actually think that sometimes we're stuck because we've done all that we can do on our own, and we need support, and we need help. Are you saying you're stuck because you're comparing yourself to someone else? So the important thing here is you didn't wake up stuck. You might have been labeling yourself as stuck, and I think that we have to identify what kind of stuck are we? The labeled version that we're stuck because we're comparing ourselves to others, or the reality that we've gone as far as we can and we need help, we need to ask for that. 


Lesley Logan 2:00  

So we kind of thought about this because we've had some great questions come in, and we had some great guests and some wonderful talking points, and it's like, okay, I've done all these things, but I'm kind of stuck on this next thing. And so just thought, well, it'd be fun, let's talk about the outgrowing theory. Because sometimes we are working when we have outgrown ourself, and we are taking action to be the next version of ourselves, and we're working on being it until we see it, we can get stuck. I mean, you've evolved, right? You have new awareness, new understandings, new dreams, new ways of how you want to operate the system that is who you are, right? And you are letting go, or trying to, of the person that you once were, and sometimes when we're in that in-between, we get stuck, right? 


Lesley Logan 2:40  

You ever done the update on your phone, and then things don't work the way they were supposed to, and the old way is not really functional either, but the new way you're going like, "Were the buttons moved over here? Hold on, why are the buttons over here now?" Some of them get stuck because we went looking for where the old buttons were, but they're in the new button setting, and so when you're in that stuck place, it can be full frustrating, and I just want you to know you're not alone. I often get stuck in some things. I will just say, "I feel really stuck right now." All of a sudden, my brain goes, "Hold on, are we stuck? We got this." 


Lesley Logan 3:15  

So, what stuck actually is, I think it's important that we talk about what is it. Like an identity lag? Maybe we know where we want to grow and do and be, but we aren't feeling like we're there yet. By the way, I just want you to know, as a habits coach, one of the hardest things you can do is change habits that are psychological. Like if you have a habit of talking negatively about yourself, you don't want to do that anymore. It's really one of the hardest habits to unravel, and so it's not surprising to me that when we are wanting to be a more positive person, or a more joyful person about the things we do, and see more possibility, and ask for more help, because of the things we have to do in our brain to become the new person, it's easy for us to hang back in the old system, in the old ways, and have this identity lag, like, I want to be here, but I'm still feeling I'm over here. 


Lesley Logan 4:06  

We can be stuck because our nervous system is just overwhelmed, right? I think a lot of us take on a lot of things, too much at one time. We have this all-or-nothing mentality in this world that we live in, and so we can actually get stuck because we're overwhelmed. I see this in some of the teachers in my eLevate program. They get stuck on what to do or what to study next, because they're trying to be perfect at all of the things, rather than just being in their body and acknowledging where they're at.


Lesley Logan 4:37  

We also get stuck when there's just too many options, and we don't have a clarity on what to do. Like, oh my gosh, you could do this, you could do that, you could do that. It's like, "I'm overwhelmed," and so then we feel stuck. Right? I remember we were planning our trip to Europe, we were like, "What do we want to do?" and it's like we have nine days, we could do anything. Europe is big, and I haven't been to so many places, and I could go to this place, or I go to that place. And I was just so overwhelmed that I felt stuck, and we didn't even plan the whole vacation until kind of right before, because we had to just get clear on, okay, hold on, what is it that we want to do? 


Lesley Logan 5:12  

You know, when we were planning our wedding, we got recommended a great book called A Practical Wedding, and she was talking about all these different questions you can ask yourself, so you can really take the overwhelm out of the wedding planning and actually take action on what you're going to do. But a lot of people get stuck in that because there's just too many options. And we can get stuck when our old systems and our old habits just don't work anymore, right? My goodness, the way our bodies work in our 20s versus how in our 40s, ladies, you could be doing the things that used to make you feel good and used to make you feel energized, and now they just don't work anymore, and so you could just feel like you're in a rut. So it's important to take note that stuck is not a personality trait, it is not something that represents who you are, you're not a stuck person, but it is a moment of misalignment, and it does mean that we have to get in there like a mechanic would to see what is the actual problem. And sometimes that means troubleshooting.  


Lesley Logan 6:10  

In your stuckness, when you are stuck, it's important that we also take a moment to see how did we get here. Like a gentle, hold on, how do we get here? Right? Sometimes if you're road tripping and you get a little lost, you think, "Hold on. How did I make a wrong turn?" and backtrack a little bit, right? So, when you are trying to see how did I get here, one thing you cannot do is blame. That is not going to work, I promise you. We talked about that in the outgrowing series. You cannot shame and blame yourself into being unstuck, or it will actually just put you further in stuck rut mode, and you'll actually just feel bad about yourself at the same time. No one wants to do that. 


Lesley Logan 6:43  

So we got to wherever we were because of so many things. One, how you are raised, what you're taught to focus on, what you caught that you should focus on, what you caught that you should behave like. For example, I definitely was rewarded as a child when I would do things that were like above and beyond to support people. So I just would go above and beyond all the time, and I would say yes to things without even asking myself if I want to be doing this, and I would just put myself out there to help people all the time. Because I would help my mom, I would help other people, I would get all these affirmations, words of affirmation, my love language, and I would then get to feel seen. "Oh my gosh, this is Lesley. She does all these amazing things for us," and so then, as an adult, without thinking about how these yeses would make me feel, I would just say yes all the time, right? So I got myself to overwhelm and stuck several times in my adult life because I was doing the things that helped me feel safe and seen as a child. These are things that you don't even realize you're doing. It takes therapy to look back and see, how did I get here? How do I keep working for the same type of person? How do I keep dating the same type of person? How do I keep ending up with friends who are all the same? Right? It's because of how we are making decisions and taking actions, and it's all based on things that were put into our systems, our system updates, when we were growing up. And so really, when you can figure that out, it's really empowering, right? 


Lesley Logan 8:09  

Because of that, when we were children, we optimize for safety, not alignment. As a kid, we don't know what our goals are, right? So we do things that make us feel safe in the environment. So if you grew up in a place where when you were perfect, it felt like you could control the environment, then you would just be perfect all the time. "If I could just be perfect all the time, then no one's gonna yell and nothing's gonna get bad." But then what happens is, you just try to be perfect all the time, and that's exhausting, by the way. It's not in alignment with what you're wanting to do in your life. People are supposed to make mistakes, you're not gonna learn things that way, and of course, you're gonna feel stuck because you're like, "I should be able to do this," but you didn't get to make the mistakes along the way to help you learn how to do it. 


Lesley Logan 8:46  

We also stay in things that work; we stay past expiration dates, right? We stay in them because there's certainty. So we get stuck often because it worked back then, so it's gonna work now, or, "I should be so grateful that I'm in this situation that I'm in. Other people have it worse." So sometimes we just stay because things work. So, if one of those things really goes, "Oh, that's kind of me, that's kind of why I get stuck," it's important that we don't say, "Oh, I've messed up, I messed up my whole life." No, I mean, that is like a thing. My gosh, my brain will catastrophize. Like when I became a Pilates instructor, and I met people who had been teaching Pilates longer because they're the same age as me-ish, but they learned about Pilates before, I remember going, "Oh my god, I've missed out on so many years that I could have been doing Pilates." Because the fact that I discovered Pilates at the age of 22, at the time when it was only four years legal to say the word Pilates, is amazing, and I'm over here going, "I messed up, I should have known about this sooner," right? But we didn't mess up. We built our lives around what worked until they don't work anymore, and now the stuck feeling is just because things in your life don't work anymore. You've outgrown, and you're in the stuck mode because you're in this between, and we have to figure out what's going to work. 


Lesley Logan 10:11  

And I'll never forget, in 2013 I was single, I wasn't couch-surfing anymore. At this point, I'd found the place I wanted to live, I was transferred, given more responsibility, blah blah blah, and somebody suggested that I do this birth chart, I don't know, futuristic, not psychic thing, because it's based on birth charts, but just get some astrological help. So I did this, and the person was like, "You have gone as far as you can on your own." And I was like, "What?" He's like, "Yep, you've actually done a great job, you've gone as far as you can on your own, and all the things that you are wanting to do in this life, you must do with other people." And that is something, by the way, I am not a person who asks for help. I just can do it all on my own, I've done it all on my own, I've moved myself multiple times in my life by myself. I can do it, right? But hearing that, I was like, "Oh, okay. So I built this life that has worked for me, and if I want to continue on, I'm going to need to get some help." And you know what? He wasn't wrong. Because here I had got a new place, decorated really beautifully, got promoted at my job and all this stuff, and I still felt like something is missing. It's missing, and so I started seeking out and looking for opportunities to partner up with different people, not necessarily in business, but just on projects and, oh, maybe I could hire that person to help me, right? 


Lesley Logan 10:12  

Okay, so I do think before we continue on the stuck thing, we do have to chat a little bit about ADHD, right? We do need to talk a little bit about ADHD, and the reason is, my ADHD loves, we sometimes equate being stuck with just not having the dopamine high that we're constantly seeking. Okay, so as ADHD people, we often say yes to 17 things, because our brains think a mile a minute. We're three steps ahead of everybody, and we can take it all on, and also we like the dopamine highs. And what happens is, especially if you're in your 40s and you didn't know you had ADHD, at some point your systems no longer work. And not only as you go through perimenopause do you lose your hormone help there, but you already were lacking that in your ADHD brain, and so now you feel a little bit stuck and overwhelmed because your systems aren't working, and you said yes to a lot, and the systems that used to help you don't work. So we have to be thoughtful and kind to ourselves.


Lesley Logan 10:12  

If you are someone who's listening with ADHD, I highly recommend getting some help to understand how your brain works so that you can not only get unstuck and ditch the overwhelm, but truly learn how to work with it. It's not like me versus my ADHD brain at all, but it's like, okay, hold on, I know in order for me to do these things, I need these tools, so I need to set myself up for success. And I'll never forget, my psychiatrist said, "I can give you the drugs to help you focus, but if you keep saying yes to too many things, the drugs won't help. It's a you problem." And I really think that if you are feeling stuck right now because you're doing too many things, because your ADHD brain is like, "Yeah, I want that, and I want that, I want that dopamine hit, that dopamine hit," we need to find ways to pause or delete or delegate or delay some of the things that we're working on, and just be honest about that. Because your brain isn't broken; it's just overstimulated and undersupported, right? So we need tools. So if you're stuck because of ADHD, I see you. We'll get some experts on here, but also do take a moment to recognize what is the ADHD versus what is stuckness versus what is overwhelm, so that you're not labeling things that are inaccurate and then feeling more stuck because you don't have the tools to work because we got mislabeled, right?


Lesley Logan 11:21  

Okay, last thing I just want to say is I think if you are an oldest daughter who is listening to this, right, firstborn of anything, there is a tendency to do a lot and should on ourselves, like, "I should be doing more of this," or, "I used to be more productive, what is wrong with me that I can't do this anymore?" And I will just say that, one, we're not the person that we were 20 years ago, so yeah, I cannot take on the things that I did 20 years ago. Also, because I know better, I know what I am capable of, I know what I'm good at, I know more of what I want, I know more of what I don't want, and so please don't should on yourself—because we had Rory on our podcast and he said it makes you a should-head, right? So, you want to make sure that you are not stuck because of the extra pressure that you're putting on yourself. Life is hard enough, there's enough pressures. And while you used to be more productive, that doesn't mean you have to stay at that production level. We don't expect people who are older than us to produce at the same level that they did when they were 20. We're like, "Oh my god, you're retired, go be retired." That's the same for you. So, double-checking, are you stuck or overwhelmed because you're putting too much pressure on yourself about what you actually can handle at this moment? 


Lesley Logan 15:31  

You know, do you have a schedule or tools? I mean, we live in a tech age, there's a lot of ways that we can get reminders and prompts, or get help. I mean, my goodness, if you're like, "I just wish I was a better cook," ChatGPT is actually fucking great for recipes. I'm not gonna lie, I don't cook, but Brad gets some good ones on there. So, if you're thinking that pressure creates movement, it doesn't. My ADHD people, I know that pressure—last-minute pressure, that procrastination—gets you feeling like, "I finally have the pressure I need to get going," but for a lot of us it actually just creates paralysis. That pressure just causes us to just, there's too much, I don't know what to do right now, and so you know, yeah, if you know how to use your pressure to get your work done, great, but if it's actually making you feel stuck, well, then it's no longer a good tool for us. 


Lesley Logan 16:25  

So we're going to talk about stuck in our next episode, which is like, okay, how do we realign? Do we need motivation? Like, how do we actually get unstuck? We're going to do that, but before we do that, I just want to say, what if you're not stuck? What if you're just recalibrating? What if you are in process, and because you're in process, it requires unraveling of things that no longer work and testing things that will? You're not going to always get it right, so you might be like, "I no longer want to use this tool, do this thing, it's going to be this tool," and that tool doesn't work. You're like, "Well, now I'm stuck." No, you actually have information: this tool doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? That's information. And then you can find a new tool. "Oh, this tool, I like this, but not that." It's just information, so you're not stuck, you're recalibrating. You're not behind, you are in an update, right? You're not actually going backwards. When we're stuck, we think, "Oh my god, now I'm going backward." No, you're not. You're actually trying to figure out how do I take the next step forward, right? You ever been on a mountain on a hike, and you get to a place and you're like, "Wait a minute, do I go left or right? Do I go right?" Do you say, "I'm stuck?" No, you're like, "Hold on, let me check the map. Oh, I go this way. Okay, that's the right way." So, you're not stuck, you're not behind, you're in an update. And because you're not stuck, because this is a moment of misalignment or transition, then the real question does become like, how do we get unstuck? How do we move forward? 


Lesley Logan 17:58  

And that's what we're talking about in the next episode, because a lot of people mistake that they're waiting for the motivation to get unstuck to help them, and as we talked about in our habit series, motivation, can't be motivation, cannot be, doesn't work that way. So, my loves, I'm super excited for this series. I hope it was really helpful. I'd love to hear what you're currently stuck on, because I can get a guest to help with that. Maybe you're stuck on tools and systems that could help you. Maybe you're stuck on a thought or an emotion or an experience, right? We'd love to hear from you. So, definitely send it into the beitpod.com/questions and your wins as well. Send this episode to a friend who might be saying that they are stuck, and hopefully the next episode supports them. Until next time, Be It Till You See It. 


Lesley Logan 18:43  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 19:25  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 19:30  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 19:35  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 19:42  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 19:45  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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